Detroit's community assets may be key to recovery

We who live in other cities wonder what drove Detroit into bankruptcy. But what we really want to know is whether it could happen to us.

Clarence Page

We who live in other cities wonder what drove Detroit into bankruptcy. But what we really want to know is whether it could happen to us.

Since 2010, five other cities and two counties, plus almost 30 special districts such as utility authorities, have filed for bankruptcy, according The Detroit News.

A day before Detroit became the biggest city to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, Moody's Investors Service downgraded Chicago's credit score three notches from Aa3, the lower end of "high grade, high quality," to A3, the lower end of what is termed "upper medium grade," because of the city's pension problems, among other factors. Pension woes were a major factor in Detroit's financial slide.

But unlike other big American cities, Detroit is the quintessential one-industry town, and a long-standing symbol of fading industrial glory and rising urban blight.

A century ago it became "Motor City," a center of technological innovation. During World War II it was the "arsenal of democracy." Producing trucks, Jeeps, tanks, aircraft engines and other products for the war effort helped the city grow to 1.8 million people.

But it has shrunk since then to 700,000. The decline of factory towns across America hit its biggest one-industry town hardest. Rising crime, a shrinking tax base and a major riot in 1967 spurred more white and middle-class flight from Detroit.

Yet, as recently as the late 1990s, Detroit was a big comeback story, along with other big cities that rode an economic boom and new attitudes about urban development, tourism and gentrification.

Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer left office in 2002 after two terms in which the city enjoyed waves of new investment, a modernized work force and upgrades in the city's bond ratings.

Unfortunately, his successor Kwame Kilpatrick became better known for being sent to prison for a headline-making sex scandal, a conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice and, after his resignation in 2008, two dozen more felony counts, including fraud.

Yet, as one who has known the city pretty well as a frequent visitor during its turbulent decades, I call today's Detroit under Mayor Dave Bing a tale of two cities in the same city. Unfortunately the old city still needs to get out of the way so the new Detroit can break free.

While there are ample abandoned factories and burned-out neighborhoods for television news crews to shoot, other parts of town bustle with renewal.

Most of this can be seen in the city's 7.2-mile core, which, unfortunately, lacks the sort of commercial or visual focus of downtown areas like, say, New York's Times Square or Chicago's Magnificent Mile.

Since the federal government bailed out auto companies associated with Detroit, many ask whether it should bail out the city. But neither Michigan's Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, President Barack Obama nor Washington's political climate sound eager to do that.

Yet, many optimists see signs of hope through a new wave of public-private partnerships.

As urban specialists Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley of the Brookings Institution, co-authors of "The Metropolitan Revolution," write on the Brookings website, Detroit has the same strong assets like colleges, research centers and an active business leadership that have helped other big postindustrial cities recover.

Much of the city is seeing a surge in private and civic investment in business and residential growth, they write, and the downtown is being transformed by such leaders as Dan Gilbert, founder of Quicken Loans, who moved the firm's headquarters to downtown Detroit in 2007.

"Cities are networks of people, not just governments," Katz said. "That's an advantage that cities have. When states or the federal government get tied up in gridlock, they have nowhere else to turn. Cities can turn to the business and philanthropic communities. Instead of a bailout, cities need to look at becoming better partners."

The world is watching. If Detroit can come back from its financial woes, any city can.